Big Orange Head #2 2026

Acrylic, metallic gold & silver paint on canvas 81.5cm x 101.5cm

Briar (noun)

...any number of prickly and thorny scrambling shrubs ...a rustic, unsophisticated person (US southern states) ...falsities, and the consequent evils (Biblical symbolism) ...feigning protestations to gain advantage (Brer Rabbit)

Big Orange Head is based on the William Morris design Spring Thicket. 

The menacing flower forms and thorny tentacled briar offered a great visual metaphor for Trump and his destructive influence on the world – it seemed a perfect representation of the rise of Trump, Farage, Netanyahu and Putin, all of them poisonous actors who Morris would have disliked intensely. 

The briar's leaves and flowers had to be golden (or gilted), money being the currency of Trump's communications as well as his taste in interior design. Netanyahu throws out his ugly propaganda in blue, weaving an extreme right wing influence that allows him to commit genocide with impunity. Silver serves as an emblem of blood money. Millionaire Farage sucks up to billionaire Trump, absorbing dark money and, like Trump, using disinformation to promote a culture of hate, whilst making himself even richer. Putin hovers over them like a missile.

Big Orange Head #1 2025

Acrylic, metallic gold & silver paint on canvas 81.5cm x 101.5cm

Shown at BattleAxe, a group show curated by Bee Nicholls at Unit 2, St Leonards on Sea, 2025